​​Professor Stephen Young Eulogy

It is with great sadness that we announce the death of Professor Stephen Young. Steve was one of the founding fathers of the AIB UK & Ireland Chapter and a friend and great encourager of many people in our community. Steve was the Chair of the AIB UK Chapter from 1991 to 1996. He was involved with the Chapter from its earliest days, and he wrote the first comprehensive constitution for the AIB UK Chapter. This constitution remains the basis of the organizational arrangements for the Chapter. The Chapter was encouraged and helped by Steve to reach out to people and universities that were not strongly linked to the international business community. The diversity of people and universities that are now strongly connected to the Chapter has its origins in large part to Steve’s initiatives and support in this area. The enormous contribution that Steve made to the Chapter and to the global international business community led to the Chapter awarding him the first John Dunning Prize for Lifetime Achievement in 2015.

A sign of his stature in the field of international business was reflected when he was appointed the international business specialist for the Business and Management Panel for the first RAE (the precursor to REF) in 1992. He reprised this role again in 2007. His research output was prodigious  and made significant contributions to our discipline. When he retired from his post at the University of Glasgow in 2014 many leading scholars in international business paid tribute to the work of Steve. His work with Neil Hood played an important role in stimulating research in some of the fundamental issues in international business. Throughout his career he influenced many scholars several of whom became leading lights in our discipline. A notable person whose work was greatly influenced by Steve was Pavlos Dimitratos, who also sadly departed from us this year.

It is notable that those that knew him all mention that he was an excellent scholar, but they were all struck by what a fine person he was. They mention his humility and his interest not only in the academic development of people, especially PhD students and earlier career researchers, but also for their general well-being. Many people in our community, including several of our leading lights, acknowledge a debt of gratitude to Steve not only as a scholar that helped them to develop their work, but as a friend who generously gave of his time and talent to help them. He stands as an example to us that being a good scholar is more than being a producer of high-quality research. It involves contributing towards the development of all scholars in our community and of taking an interest in their well-being. Steve was a first-rate scholar and more importantly a fine human being.  He will be sadly missed.

- Executive Board of AIB UK & Ireland Chapter